Posts Tagged "Patrick Mordaunt"

Patrick Mordaunt is stepping into the ring for 2015 with the old Falken Nissan 350z that has taken home the win at Irwindale Speedway in the past. Pat is now part of a two car team that includes Tyler McQuarrie, who will run and manage the program, and continue to drive his GoPro Chevrolet Camaro for the 2015 season. As you can also see, Patrick has moved to Falken Tire for the 2015 season. I think that makes our rumor of Tyler McQuarrie moving to Falken Tire a safe bet since they are 2015 teammates. After some social media digging it seems the 350z will get a similar LS7 engine package to the Camaro as well. Patrick will bring sponsors such as Konig Wheels, Sparco, Brian Crower, and a title sponsor DriftPaddock.com to the 350z.

This is likely the most reliable and solid drift car Pat Mordaunt will step into over his long drift career. The question now will be can he rise up to the challenge and perform well? He sure needs it after last season that ended with a bunch of broken Hyundai parts.

A few people hinted us that Odi Bakchis could be taking over the ARK Hyundai Genesis ride for the 2015 Formula Drift season. We didn’t have much evidence to back up this rumor until Odi took to Instagram last night and posted the Genesis itself. Odi hinted at he was fixing “the other car” which could easily imply his new Formula Drift ride.

We do know that Patrick Mordaunt has already stepped down from the ARK team which we reported on recently. Even though the cars look very similar we do know that the photograph Odi posted is actually of the Hyundai Genesis driven by Dennis Mertzanis. The photo Odi posted features a yellow roll cage and Takata Racing seats which are both unique traits of the 1000hp V8 Hyundai used by Dennis in 2014. You can find some photos of the cars interior to confirm they are the same vehicle here. Dennis Mertzanis did fail to keep his pro license after a very poor performance in the car. How do you think Odi could do in this Genesis if he winds up making the move to it for 2015?

UPDATE @ 4:13pm PST / February 10th

I emailed with Odi and posted a schedule of his car usage for the 2015 season. The pending issue might be the Canada round and if his car can return from Japan or not with shipping. If the car doesn’t make it, he will run his 240sx at this round.

Various reports coming from Texas Motor Speedway today has informed us that track speeds will be greatly reduced this year for Round 6. How is Formula Drift planning to do this? Well, they are going to move the front start line way closer to that strange turn 1 entry. I for one hate this idea and would love to see as much speed as possible coming into that first turn. Regardless of where Formula Drift finalizes the turn one entry point I can only imagine that Round 6 in Texas won’t be as much of a disaster as the 2013 event. In case you forgot, 2013 wound up with the first ever overturned judged ruling in the sports history, an insane amount of dead time due to protested calls, and a record number of protested submitted during one event weekend.

During a southern downpour qualifying continued and ran 4 hours in time. Drivers were given a tester/feel lap then had to go and make a judged run right after. The track started to dry up about halfway through the second passes which is the result of the big points gap in the scores.

Pat Mordaunt dropped on social media a few days ago this photo of him sitting in the Retaks S13.5 that has seen many years in Formula Drift. In fact, Toshiki Yoshioka just borrowed it for the Super Drift Challenge last month. Pat would confirm with me that he did not buy the car outright but that is about all he would say. Some people have suggested that Pat Mordaunt will campaign this car instead of the Genesis coupe for the east coast legs of Formula Drift after blowing two engines at Long Beach but that is just speculation. What do you think he is up to with the Retaks 240sx?

Here are the Top 32 brackets and we grouped together the potential Top 16 pairings as well. Sit back and get ready for an insane Round 1 of Formula Drift with the new season officially underway. Here is how they are set:

ARK Performance threw a party to show off the cars of Patrick Mordaunt and Dennis Mertzanis for 2014 Formula Drift. Patrick Mordaunt was first to unveil his Hyundai Genesis. The two cars look similar on the exterior but are built differently on the inside.

Patrick’s Genesis coupe retained the factory V6 LAMBDA and is actually using the same chassis that Dennis Mertzanis drove in 2013 for Formula Drift but it has a complete refresh. The motor package is a 3.8L V6 bored to a 4.0L Hyundai Lambda V6 turbocharged that makes 700hp/700ft. lbs of torque. This is adding an insane amount of torque from the build last year. Parts by Max has taken care of all the suspension on this car.

Dennis Mertzanis built a new ground up Hyundai Genesis for the 2014 season. The ground up build comes with a Winters Quick Change, dog box, and a Vortech Supercharged LS7 engine that is making 1000hp. His build also features Powered by Max suspension and with a build he told me is very close to his perfect vision of a drift car. This seems to add pressure for him to preform at an all time high this season.

Our Wrecked Weekly Episode #15 is coming out a day late due to travel but has a good double punch of drivers for the week. We grab Patrick Mordaunt and Dennis Mertzanis to talk about how they are going to face now being partners in the 2014 Formula Drift season. They have never faced each other in competition but do feel they have a similar driving style. Patrick talks about his move Norcal and how he feels about protests in Formula Drift. These guys seem ready for a big season with the Hyundai Genesis coupe it seems like. Now its time to see if they can perform with the new engine packages and debut at Tech Day in two weeks.

The guys at ARK are pumping out the PR machine with even more news for the 2014 Formula Drift season. The two car team of Dennis Mertzanis and Patrick Mordaunt will be in matching Hyundai Genesis Legato builds with different engine platforms. Why on earth ARK thinks it is a good idea to field a two car team with vastly different engine platforms is beyond me.

The one common factor is that both engines will be inside a Hyundai Genesis coupe. The first build is a 7.2L GM LS7 engine with a Vortech V-7 YSi Supercharger set to make 1,000hp and 900 ft-lbs. of torque. The second build is a 4.0L Hyundai Lambda V6 turbocharged that makes 700hp/700ft. lbs of torque. From what we understand Dennis will be driving the LS7 car but we will work to confirm that shortly.